When to mix 5 week old chicks with 1 week old chicks ?

[emicoo]

I’m new to chickens and got 5 baby chicks (i think 2 roos and three hens) I quickly realized how much i loved chickens and my friend who gave me the first batch offered some more babies.

The five week olds have been in their coop for about a week now and doing great! But now i have 4 one week olds and have no idea how to integrate them.

Would it be better to slowly introduce them now where they’re still so young? Outside and chaperoned at first. The roosters are just started to get the red on their waddles and haven’t started cooing.

They all still seem like babies… Can’t seem to find much info on this. If anyone has any insight i would appreciate it!

 

[Theorrin]

You wanna wait till their 6 weeks ish. There's a pecking order that'll be established and at that young of an age they wont be able to handle it

 

[NatJ]

The five week olds have been in their coop for about a week now and doing great! But now i have 4 one week olds and have no idea how to integrate them.

Can you put a divider in the coop? A piece of wire mesh would be ideal, so they can see each other and interact, but cannot pick on each other.

After they have had a week or so of seeing each other, you can watch how they interact and decide what to do next. You might make chick-sized holes in the divider that let little chicks go through to visit the big chicks, but keep big chicks out. That is a good way to let the little ones decide how much mixing is safe.

Overall, I think it is going to be easier if you integrate them while they are quite young, rather than waiting for them to get much older. But you do need to be a bit careful that the little ones do not get hurt.

Here is an article you might find interesting. It is about integrating chicks with adult chickens, but some of the same ideas might be useful apply when integrating chicks of different ages with each other:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/my-coop-brooder-and-integration.74591/

 

[mcdze]

not at one week .. id give them another week or two in the brooder box, then section off an area for the new ones with wire so they can aclimate to the coop, eating etc, 'before' even worrying about them getting along .. when theyre used to the coop a few days then see how things go when you remove the wire .. theyll probably be fine at that point if its warm weather ..

 

[corthendo]

I’m new to chickens and got 5 baby chicks (i think 2 roos and three hens) I quickly realized how much i loved chickens and my friend who gave me the first batch offered some more babies.

The five week olds have been in their coop for about a week now and doing great! But now i have 4 one week olds and have no idea how to integrate them.

Would it be better to slowly introduce them now where they’re still so young? Outside and chaperoned at first. The roosters are just started to get the red on their waddles and haven’t started cooing.

They all still seem like babies… Can’t seem to find much info on this. If anyone has any insight i would appreciate it!

I’m still struggling with this, I basically did the same thing. I have 5, 7 week old chicks and 3, 3 week old chicks. I’ve been putting them next to each other for most of the day so the big chicks are in their run and the little ones are in a dog kennel lol. When I let the big girls free range for a few hours everyday they will peck the little ones if they get close to them through the kennel. I thought they would be easier to integrate I’ve been trying for probably 4 days and they still don’t like them lol.